Inquiries and Investigations
by Brenman
Summary: It's up to Hughes to deliver a military report explaining how Ed and Roy managed to destroy Headquarters while Bradly was out of town. And how is all this Al's fault. Edward/Winry and Roy/Riza. Rewrite.


Disclaimer: I don't own a Car. Do you really think I could own Fullmetal Alchemist?

Inquiries and Investigations

Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes took a seat in the spotlight. Shielding his eyes he peered at the people sitting on the council in front of him. He could see Fuhrer Bradley sitting directly ahead and he took his hand away from his brow to wave happily at all the serious looking faces before him. "You all look rather gloomy. What's the matter? Oh I know, you want to see a picture of my darling little girl don't you?"

Hughes was about to pull a picture of little Elicia out of his pocket before he was stopped with a wave of the Fuhrer's hand, "Not now Lieutenant Colonel, we have other matters to discuss. Would you please begin your presentation on the investigation as to why I arrived back in Central to a completely destroyed and malformed head quarters."

Hughes frowned at the thought someone might not want to look at a picture of such a cute kid, but began his presentation regardless. "Before making any solid conclusions as to who was responsible for this incident, I would like you all to read these." He said as he began handing booklets of paper to each of the committee members, "These packages contain a compilation of relevant exerts from the the interviews my team and I conducted with everyone that was involved in or present at the event. If you would be so kind as to read everything thoroughly I believe you may come to realize, as I have, that there is no one person that can be blamed for what has happened."

Bradley looked down at the booklet and began flipping through the pages.

Interview on October 10th with Alphonse Elric at 3:56 P.M.

In my opinion everything began on the evening of September 31st at approximately five-thirty. Colonel Roy Mustang and Ed had stayed late in Roy's office to discuss Ed's up coming State Alchemist Reevaluation Test, and Roy was telling Ed that it wouldn't help his odds of being reissued his license if all his missions ended in complete disaster.

During this time I had been shooed out of the office when First Lieutenant Hawkeye had gone home for the day. She had told me to wait in the hall and to not bother the other alchemists, She also told me that Roy had enough on his plate without having to lecture both of us. While I was in the hall, I heard the phone in the Colonels room ring. I listened in on the one sided conversation. It seems the call was made by Winry Rockbell, as evident when big brother began yelling at the phone in a rage. Winry has always been able to do things to brother that other people couldn't. Like make him boiling mad with almost no effort. Winry was in town visiting us for the week, and it appears she called because she was wondering why we weren't home yet.

This is when I came up with the entire idea. I used a piece of chalk to draw a transmutation circle on the floor and used alchemy to create myself a camera. After that it was just a matter of waiting until the two of them came out of the room. When I heard them approaching the door and the sound of the lights being turned off, I quickly used alchemy again to create a trip wire where the doors had been only moments before. Ed and the Colonel came out of the room and promptly landed in a heap on the floor. As they lay together in a rather blush inspiring and compromising position I took my picture, and then quickly ran away before either of them could figure out what had happened.

Interview on October 9th with Edward Elric at 9:56 P.M.

I was already mad at Winry for not trusting us enough to be able to take care of ourselves. I guess I wasn't thinking clearly because if I was I might have been able to spot the faint line of wire stretching across the door frame. As I walked out of the Colonel's office the world became a blur as the floor came up to meet my face. After landing I quickly managed to roll over just in time to see Mustang land right on top of me with his face mere centimeters above my own, and our limbs tangled together in a way that made me want to up and puke on the spot.

A sudden clicking sound accompanied with a flash of light made me blink rapidly. As soon as Roy and I had regained our vision we stood up quickly and looked around for the culprit who had pulled the prank on us. The only thing we noticed was that Al was missing and the suspicious echos of an empty suit of armour that sounded like it was running around a distant part of the building.

I shrugged it off at the moment, and began trudging home, and hoping that Winry had made stew tonight. The late meeting had made my appetite ferocious and I couldn't wait to tame the beast in my stomach. Al's suspicious behavior would have to wait.

Interview on October 10th with Winry Rockbell at 6:36 P.M.

I noticed Al was acting a little bit suspiciously when he came running into the house in a panic and quickly locked the door behind him and peered out the window as if to see if he was being followed. After that he ran up to his own room and shut the door, locking it with alchemy. About twenty minutes later Ed came waltzing through the door. I noticed a smudge of dirt on his face, but thought nothing of it at the time. Ed sat down as I served the stew I had made just for him. I smiled at him when he complimented me on how good it was.

I asked Ed what he and Roy had been talking about so late. He hadn't sound to happy at being interrupted over the phone. He told me that Roy was "bitching him out" about his performance record and what he would do about his fast approaching alchemy evaluation. I told him he would do just fine during his test, and that I believed in him. This seemed to cheer him up a little bit.

After we finished supper the front door creaked open slowly and Alphonse cautiously crept into the house. Funny, I hadn't even seen or heard him leave. I thought about it for a second and realized that using alchemy it wouldn't be too difficult to get out of anywhere unnoticed. He probably made a hole in his bedroom wall and left that way. I watched from across the table as Ed began glaring at his brother. He asked him where he had been, and if he knew anything about a tripwire back at headquarters.

Al just shrugged and pulled a piece of paper out from under his blue skirt-cloth thing. He showed it to Ed who took a look at it and promptly turned a sickly shade of green. Al told Ed that if he didn't do what Al told him to he would show the picture to everyone in the military. Whatever was on the paper must have been bad, because Ed suddenly snatched it out of Al's hand and tore it up into little shreds before looking smugly at his little brother.

Al only chuckled and told Ed he knew that he would do that and said he had copies and that he had given copies to another person also, with instructions to distribute them if Ed didn't cooperate. Ed slumped into his chair.

Interview on October 10th with Alphonse Elric at 4:29 P.M.

I looked down at my big brother happily as he digested the information I had just given him. He sighed in defeat and looked at me with pleading eyes, and asked me what I wanted him to do. I told him that for his reevaluation test he would have to face Colonel Mustang in a mock duel again. Only this time, instead of a cat and the information on Tim Marcoh on the line the loser would have to, and at this point I leaned in and whispered in his ear so that a very confused looking Winry wouldn't be able to hear. Nothing would work out if she knew my plan.

Naturally, at finding out what the loser would have to do Edward looked shocked and even blurted out a loud "WHAT?" before getting up from his seat, glaring at me, and stomped upstairs to his room.

I went to bed a short while later and Winry followed me, she tried to ask me what was going on, but I told her she would have to wait in order to find out. She looked a little bit put out at this and hit me in the head with her wrench before storming past me and shutting herself in the guest room. It's a good thing her wrenches can't hurt me anymore.

Interview on October 9th with Roy Mustang at 12:45 P.M.

I sat at my desk on the morning of October 1st with my feet up on the desk watching the doorway intently like a predator waiting for his prey. I was rewarded a couple minutes later as Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc came striding purposefully around the corner and promptly found his face embedded in the tile flooring, as he became the latest victim of the tripwire that had yet to be removed from the doorway. I laughed so hard I nearly fell out of my chair as I watched him struggle to get up off the floor. Luckily for me the show didn't end there. All my subordinates are supposed to show up at the office at precisely 8:00 A.M. everyday. Today being no exception, within a few short seconds the second lieutenant had been joined on the floor by Master Sergeant Kain Fuery, Warrant Officer Vato Falman, and First Lieutenant Heymans Breda. I was slightly worried for a second as First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye came around the corner with her nose buried in a briefing, but sighed in relief as she cleanly stepped over the tripwire and scooted around her fallen comrades.

She took her place at her usual desk as the rest of the group staggered to their feet and slowly limped over to their desks and sat down with a multitude of groans moans and even one "It feels like someone's boot is still in my nether regions". I stopped laughing long enough to register that Fullmetal and his brother had just stepped into the room in the chaos and Alphonse had removed the tripwire. I turned a glare at the walking suit of armour and stood up quickly. I was about to ask Al what exactly he thought he was doing last night, when he pulled me over to a corner of the room rather violently and removed a piece of paper out from under his modesty cloth.

Al shoved the paper under my nose, and I grabbed it quickly and looked at it. I always thought it was only a figure of speech, but for the first time in my life I actually felt the blood drain from my face. Before my very eyes was a picture of Ed and myself lying on the floor in each others arms, and it actually looked like we were about to kiss. I pushed Al back and snapped my fingers, burning the paper to a crisp in and instant. I grabbed the Helmet off of Al's body and brought it to my eye level before asking exactly what was going on and what the meaning of all this was. He quietly told me that I would have to have a mock duel with Ed on October 3rd or everyone in the military would see the copies that he had made of the picture. I wondered briefly if there was any reason that the duel would be held on the anniversary of when they burned their house down, or if that hadn't even occurred to Alphonse.

I quickly agreed, even though I didn't want to. That picture could ruin my womanizer reputation in an instant. It was a lose-lose situation. If I backed out no one would believe we were set up, and the more I tried to tell people that we tripped the less likely they would be to believe us. On the other hand, a mock duel with Edward and a bit of cleaning up afterwards, while not being ideal, was easily the lesser of two evils. Alphonse quickly grabbed his head back and leaned in to tell me of the stipulations.

Interview on October 9th with First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye at 9:46 A.M.

On the morning of October 1st I had come into the office as usual, but found It kind of odd that I had to step around all of my fellow staff and avoid a rather nasty looking wire. I know our office would never win an award for being the most normal staff line up in the military, but this was going a bit far. I decided to ignore the problem and assumed it would fix itself in time.

A short while later Ed and Al had entered the office and sure enough, the wire made it's exit. I watched as Al seemed to manhandle the Colonel into a corner and I became quite interested in what was happening when I noticed shortly afterward that even more unusual then the wire and the pile up earlier, Roy seemed to be sweating bullets and had gone a deathly white colour. He began yelling at Al before the tall youngster whispered something in his ear and he seemed to curl up into a ball on his chair and miracle of miracles managed to complete all his paper work for the day, not even stopping long enough to get lunch or chat with any of his loyal subordinates. I made a mental note to ask Al what it was he had done so that I could do it to him myself when need be.

Interview on October 8th with Major Alex Louis Armstrong at 5:37 P.M.

I first heard that Edward Elric would be dueling with Colonel Roy Mustang on October 2nd. I was approached by First Lieutenant Heymans Breda who asked me to be the referee for the match. I asked him why Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes couldn't do it like last time. He told me that no one had appreciated his commentary and he would never be able to keep his focus on anything but his daughter for longer then five seconds. I told him that I would accept his offer and that someone as beautiful and strong as I would only be able to referee the match with perfect fairness. I flexed my muscles and watched Breda back away slowly with a smile on his face.

This is when I realized that once again my shirt had mysteriously vanished. This happens to me too often and I have never been able to figure out where the shirts go. I asked Hughes once if he could investigate it for me, but he wouldn't stop talking about his daughter long enough to listen to my plight.

Statement made on October 10th by Maes Hughes.

I had heard about the reevaluation duel on October 1st from Edward. I told him he would do fine and that I would be there cheering him on. I went to Roy's office to volunteer for refereeing duty, but they told me that they already had someone chosen out. I showed Roy a picture of Elicia and told him that if anything happened that I would be the back up referee. He seemed so happy to see a picture of my little darling that he couldn't refuse me. She's just so adorable isn't she. She has my cheek bones. It's just the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

On October 3rd I stood within the crowd surrounding the two alchemists. They stared each other down as Major Armstrong stood between them and flexed his muscles, and his shirt disappeared. I've never been able to figure out how he does that, I've even conducted investigations into the matter. Armstrong took that moment to announce to the crowd what the stakes were to be. I can't say I was too surprised at them, considering Alphonse Elric had shown up at my door on September 31st and told me everything that he was planning. It turns out that the stakes were to be that the loser would have to confess to the person they most love how they feel about them and ask them out on a date, and the loser would also have to clean up the mess left by the duel without using alchemy.

Interview on October 9th with First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye at 10:05 A.M.

I was shocked when I heard the Major announce what was at stake during the duel, and at first I thought the Major was actually playing a joke on everyone, until I remembered that Al seemed to be behind all this, and I was sure he wouldn't mind hooking his brother up with someone. I will have to admit that at this moment the thought crossed my mind that if the Colonel were to lose I was hoping I would be the person he confessed to.

I continued to watch the Major announce the standard rules of engagement and told the two fighters to play fairly and with genteel decorum. As the Major stepped back the two alchemists began trading blows. Most of the attacks were fairly normal for those two. Flames whipped around the battle area and pillars of rock extended into the sky to block their path and then slam down around the Colonel, who would quickly dodge them.

Shortly into the duel Colonel Mustang was standing only a dozen meters from the head quarters when he sent a shot of flame towards Edward who was running towards him at the time. The flame hit the ground behind Fullmetal and the resounding shock wave sent Ed flying through the air towards the building. I thought he would have been done for sure upon smashing into the wall at such speed, but I didn't expect him to use alchemy to transform the entire building's chemical composition into a large white spongy substance I quickly realized was in fact marshmallow.

The marshmallow cushioned the impact, and he fell to the ground beside the building. Unfortunately, this is where the fun ended for both alchemists, because without thinking the Colonel sent an enormous jet of flame spiraling towards the marshmallow building. The building went up in a bonfire and within seconds the sugary substance began to melt, expand and fall over on top of both the Colonel and Fullmetal in a slightly burnt and sugary blob that surely would have reminded everyone in the crowd of roasting marshmallows over a campfire. Except usually one would eat the marshmallow, not the other way around.

Statement made on October 10th by Maes Hughes.

I rushed towards the building that had collapsed on top of two of my best friends and was now expanding and melting it's way down the street and began trudging through the sticky substance. Other people with sense like mine began searching for the two alchemists, but there were others who began grabbing up gooey handfuls of the marshmallow and started eating it. It didn't take us long to find the two missing people. Once we managed to pull them both out it was easy to tell that they were unconscious, but thankfully both still alive.

Interview on October 10th with Second Lieutenant Black Hayate at 1:23 P.M.

Woof *Tail wag* Woof Bark.

Interview on October 9th with Edward Elric at 10:43 P.M.

I first came to on October 5th sometime in the morning, and was greeted by the happy faces of Winry and Al hovering over me. I looked at Al expectantly and he seemed to frown before telling me that I had lost the battle and would have to follow through with the deal unless I wanted that picture to be circulated around all the major military outposts and head quarters.

He told me that I could wait until I got out of the hospital before following through on my end of the bargain. I watched him walk out of the room and close the door behind him. I looked at Winry as she took my hand in her own and smiled at me fondly before hitting me in the head with her wrench and telling me to never nearly die on her like that again.

It wasn't until the stinging from the wrench had subsided that it occurred to me that the anniversary of the day we burned our house down was the day we melted head quarters. Ironic.

Interview on October 9th with Colonel Roy Mustang at 1:19 P.M.

I had been awake for a few minutes only looking around my hospital room and wondering if I would have any attractive nurses when Alphonse burst through the door. Al walked up to me and told me in no soft words that I had lost the battle and would be forced to follow through on the terms if I didn't want that god awful picture to be seen by any more people.

I looked at Riza Hawkeye fondly as she strode through the door while Al left the room just as quickly as he had come. She saluted me and then began telling me that because all the paper work in my office had melted I luckily hadn't fallen behind in any work during the past two days, but I should be ashamed of myself for melting head quarters, but judging by the little smile playing at her lips, she was finding it hard not to laugh at the amusement of the situation.

Interview on October 10th with Winry Rockbell at 7:28 P.M.

Edward was released from the hospital later on in the day that he woke up. We took a military courtesy car back to the house and Edward went straight to bed and didn't come out until late the next morning. I never realized that being smothered by marshmallow was so tiring. In the afternoon on the 6th of October I was busy tinkering with Ed's Automail, recalibrating all the mechanisms that had been filled with marshmallow. I had already cleaned the gunk out while he had been in the hospital, and let me tell you, if he ever pulls a stunt like this again he's going to be losing the rest of his limbs. Can you even imagine the amount of work it would take to clean a sticky substance out of a piece of precision equipment.

As I was tinkering with one of the mechanisms I noticed Ed was looking at the doorway with a worried expression on his face. I looked up to see Al gesticulating at Ed for some reason. The younger brother quickly noticed me looking at him and inched his way out of the room and disappeared into a different part of the house. I looked at Ed, who was red in the face and seemed to be staring at his feet. I asked him if he still wasn't feeling well or if he had a fever. He shook his head and continued to stare at his feet.

I realized that his face wasn't red from a fever, upon closer inspection I noticed that he was in fact blushing. He looked so adorable sitting there nervously. Ed opened his mouth and mumbled out some words that I couldn't quite catch. I asked him what he had said and was rewarded with a loud strangled shout that sounded kind of like OWAVRU. I blinked repeatedly and tried to clean the wax out of my ears and asked Ed if he could try that one more time. He took a deep breath and said in what I guess he tried to make into a calm sounding voice that he liked me.

I laughed and told him that I sure hoped he liked his best friend. He seemed to swallow a lump down his throat, and told me that what he meant was that he really liked me. I was speechless at this point wondering if he was trying to tell me what I thought he was. He seemed to dredge up the courage from some long lost part of his soul and managed to squeak out a final I love you Winry before I pounced on him and nearly glomped him into a coma. We went on our first date that night.

Interview on October 9th with First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye at 10:34 A.M.

On the morning of October 6th I was sitting at my makeshift desk in the new makeshift Military head quarters tent putting together some paper work concerning the whole duel massacre. I was just about to leave and find a quieter place to perform my work, because the tent was packed full of other people trying to bring some semblance of order to our little crisis, but were only adding to the confusion themselves. I began piling my papers together when Colonel Mustang breezed into the tent, slipped past anyone that might have been blocking his path and knelt down in front of me. He whipped a large bouquet of roses out from behind his back and presented them to me with one of his woman killing smiles and said, "Riza, you've always been my favorite loyal follower. I love you more then all the women of the world. Come darling, elope with me." before grabbing me and pulling me out of the tent.

I returned just in time to give this interview with a wedding ring on my finger.

Interview on October 10th with Alphonse Elric at 4:51 P.M.

I have realize that my plan had a few crucial flaws, but considering that it was all thrown together on the spur of a moment I would hardly expect it to be perfect. Even now I feel no regrets towards lying to both Ed and Roy by telling them that they both lost the duel. I feel that it was the right thing to do, and in my defense I did clean up the duel area for them. Unfortunately, I was unable to salvage Central command, but it was only a building right? It couldn't be worth nearly as much as the happiness of the two couples these events have managed to bring together. I hope.

Statements Ended

Hughes was waiting patiently for the last of the council members to put their booklet down. Once all the attention was back on him he stood up and cleared his throat. "Well as you can no doubt see, there is no one person who is responsible for this atrocity. Alphonse Elric instigated the event with his staged photo. Ed turned the building into Marshmallow in self defense and Roy was an idiot and torched the place. Either way the battle was tied and that means the two responsible alchemists should have to fix the problems without using alchemy, but even if they did use alchemy they would be unable to fix the problem. An examination of the effected area has revealed that most of the building has now been eaten, and with out the original material it would be too difficult for the two alchemists to reassemble."

Fuhrer Bradley stood up, "Well, it seems we will have to have the whole building rebuilt from scratch, and neither of the alchemists responsible have the proper knowledge to build it by hand they are to be acquitted of all duties outlined by the deal they agreed to. You are all dismissed."

Hughes walked out of the room happily. He found Alphonse Elric leaning against the wall waiting for him, "Well I'm glad. It took long enough, but it was worth it." the Lieutenant Colonel said, "I've been telling him to get a wife for years and he finally got around to doing it." Hughes began walking down the hall before turning around, "Hey Al, do you mind if I hang onto this picture?"

Al shook his head happily, "No, all I care is that Brother's happier then he's been in a long time."

Brenman: If I do say so myself, this may be the best fanfic I've ever written.


End file.
